The government will create an unemployment early warning system and strengthen procedures to deal with labor-management disputes in anticipation of mass layoffs at local companies being hurt by the global economic downturn, an official said yesterday.
These and other measures were agreed upon at an inter-agency meeting convened by the Council of Labor Affairs (CLA) on Thursday to address issues related to protecting workers’ rights, the official said.
The meeting, attended by representatives from the Ministry of Justice and various central and local government agencies in charge of labor affairs, was aimed at strengthening exchanges among those agencies, the official said.
Aside from setting up an early-warning system and improving the standard operating procedures used to handle labor-management conflicts, the government would also establish a single window to facilitate information exchange among government agencies and set up a Web site to deal with labor disputes.
Those at the meeting also agreed to hold regular cross-agency coordination meetings to help labor affairs officials stay on top of changes in early warning unemployment indicators and effectively settle industrial disputes, the labor council official said.
CLA Minister Jennifer Wang (王如玄) said in order to ease public concern over potential mass layoffs in the face of the global economic downturn, the government should stand on the side of workers and give priority to protecting their employment rights, the council official said.
Wang also advised employers facing operating difficulties to adjust their management strategies to protect the interests of their employees before they move to negotiate a layoff agreement with their staff.
The minister said that the council was more than willing to help enterprises hold dialogue with their employees to pursue a better approach when solving such problems.
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